Recently I have been reading a lot of blogs related to Dungeons & Dragons. More recently I have been interested in posts related to Dungeon Masters of the game finding ways to save time. For those of you not formilare with D&D, it can take a lot of time to prep for a game as a Dungeon Master. I have come across lots of great ideas on the Internet. Many of them I want to work into my current game or the next game I start DMing for. But for this post I want to talk about game notes and how they help me and my group save time.
Game Notes are basically a summery of what happened at the last game. I e-mail the game notes out to give all my players a chance to read over the notes and be ready for the next time we all sit down and play. Because everyone reads the notes we don’t waist a lot of time anymore reviewing what happened at last weeks game.
My current Dungeons and Dragons game consists of 5 Player Characters and Myself as the Dungeon Master. The vast majority of everyone at my game is new to D&D. Recently I have asked someone to be the scribe of the game. Someone who will take bullet point notes of what happens during each game so I can have something that will jog my memory for later when I am writing my game notes. In my current group that task falls to the same person each time but there is not reason why that task can’t switch from person to person at each game.
When writing game notes to be e-mailed out I try very hard never to let the notes go over one page in length. Just focus on the important stuff of the last game. Things that might be issues or plot points for future games. I also include information on where the next game will be held, time, and what kind of food will be available. I also only write using plain text. I am somewhat old school when it comes to e-mail. I don’t believe e-mail was designed for html letters to be sent with fancy fonts and colors. I just write mine in plain text and I worked hard to make sure I found a formatting that works for me.
Below is an example of game notes pretty much take from one of my past games.
WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME:
[-] DAZED AND CONFUSED.:Our Adventures from TEAM POWER AWESOME TEAM went to sleep in a cosy
little inn just inside of the Kingdom of Toss, but they awoke to find
them selves shackled to a wall of a room under ground with bite marks
all over their bodies. If things couldn’t be worse each member of our
elite band of adventures had contracted Filth fever. With the help of
TOTAL TEAM POWER member Salandra, everyone was able to escape from
their shackles. [-] LET ME OUT OF HERE!:
The next issue for our group of brave souls was to just get out of the
room they had become imprisoned in. The room had two exiting doors.
Both where locked with no obvious way out. Snort tried opening the
first door by pulling down on a near by touch lever but only found
himself to be come electrocuted while doing so. Scorcha (with the aid
of her familiar, Ember) was able to hold the touch down with out
becoming electrocuted. The door open and Snort got shot with a cross
bow bolt to the chest. Ember also retrieved a key to the second door
allowing Irana to locate all of TEAM UNOBTAINIUM POWER AWESOME TEAM
POWER’s belongings. Including her much beloved books as some other new
items such as a bag of holding. [-] WHO IS BEHIND ALL OF THIS?:
TOTAL TEAM POWER AWESOME discovers the Rat King sitting alone in one
of the under ground chambers with the lamp of Ordu before him. Through
questioning they learn that the Rat King is one of the sons of King
Duran. Hammer Duran. IT is learned that Hammer has been chasing his
evil brother Samuel all over the lands trying to capture the lamp of
Ordu before he could. By the end of the story Hammer Duran sets Ordu
free from his imprisoned life with in the lamp. As a result Ordu
quickly ages and turns into dust. Irana collects the dust and puts it
in her bag of holding.
Our party members from TRIPPLE ACTION FORCE TEAM, along with the help
of hammer mallet are working on a plan to warn the King of Toss of the
impending danger to him and his kingdom. Hammer’s evil brother Samuel
and Samuel’s death knight are making there way ever close to the
kingdom.
NOTES ON THE GAME SO FAR
[-]King Duran of the kingdom of Toss
[-][-]Prince Samuel Duran (aka Father Mallet)
[-][-]Prince Hammer Duran
Adolescent bickering ended up with both princes being banished from
Toss until they can straiten up.
[-] Death knight is the re-animated corps of Sir Timbulton.
GAME INFO
[-} Location: Yoshi and Hannah’s
[-] Time: Saturday the 9th at 2pm.
[-] Food: No clue. I will e-mail something when I have an idea. Suggestions?
[-] Contribute: Since I don’t know what we are going to eat feel free
to bring anything you enjoy. Drinks, snacks, food.
